by D Murray
“What’s wrong with you?” Odd-eyes asked, a critical sneer crossing his features.
“Nothing!” she snapped. “What’s wrong with you?” She twisted her face, and nodded towards him. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
The man laughed and shoved his hands into side pockets in his fur coat. “I was born this way.”
“Yeah? Well, so was I. So fuck off with your prick questions.”
He laughed again and turned, shaking his head. “Get him back on his feet,” he shouted to the men who strode with ease down the slope to where Culver had come to rest in a snowy heap. “Less shoving,” Odd-eyes continued. “Hard enough walking these hills without you kicking and shoving all the time.”
Ruah gritted her teeth and forced herself onwards with steady, careful steps. The cloth bindings around her boots continued to give her some purchase, but her balance was off, and with the pain snaking about her leg and hips, and the fiery pulses up and down her back, her focus was drifting more and more. Halpern and the rest of the party had passed her, leaving her at the rear with Odd-eyes to her left and Tusk to her rear. She looked back at the big dog and saw him look wearily up at the tall man decked out in furs. He had runic tattoos running along the shaven sides of his head underneath a thick braid of dirty blond hair.
“When did you last eat?” the man asked, the long beard hanging from his chin moving on the breeze.
Ruah looked up at him, noting he held a dried strip of meat in his hand.
“Ate last night,” she snapped, walking on, swallowing the pain. “Not hungry.”
“Suit yourself,” the man replied, taking a bite, then tossing the rest of the chunk to Tusk.
Ruah turned in time to see the dog snap the meat from the air,and gnaw it between his back teeth.
“Name’s Harvind,” the man said. “Just set up camp from where the gully meets the valley floor. We smelled your fire from our camp. Not very discreet of you. What’s your name, girl?”
“Fuck yourself.”
“Woakie’s tits, child! Weren’t you loved as a babe?”
Ruah glared at the man, and then pain spasmed across her pelvis. Her foot gave way beneath her, and her left leg slid out in front of her. Searing fire erupted through her whole body as her legs split wide, her right foot planted behind her. She landed hard on her side and screamed in pain. Harvind’s hand clamped hard over her mouth and Ruah’s eyes widened as fear gripped her. Tusk bounded forward and then past Ruah, running down the slope towards the others.
“Quiet!” Harvind hissed, his odd-coloured eyes peering up the steep side of the mountain. “I’ll let go if you can stay quiet.”
Ruah felt her heart thump hard against her chest, and hot blood sloshed around her ears. She swallowed hard, blinked away tears, then nodded.
As Harvind removed his hand from her mouth, an explosion cracked through the air above them. “Avalanche!”
Ruah looked over her head and saw a wave of powdered snow blast airborne, lit yellow in the evening sun. Pain spasmed as Harvind scooped her up and slung her over his shoulder. She clenched her teeth through the agony as he bounded down the slope in great, wide strides. She looked up and saw the wave of snow swell and gather pace. I’m going to die. The cloud of snow expanded, greying out the sun, and the wall of white rushed on. Harvind dropped onto his backside, pain spasming up Ruah’s back. They began to slide. Fast. They sped down the mountainside, snow and rock sweeping past her head. Ruah watched the terrible wall of snow as it raced towards them. She fancied she saw white horses in the swirling mass of snow. White knees raised high in a graceful gallop. White manes flowing out against the wind. Nostrils flaring and–
Hands grabbed at her and hauled her to the side, dragging her by the shoulders alongside Harvind and in between two huge walls of stone. A tide of snow blasted past the mouth of the space and flooded the valley floor in front of her. A warm tongue swept over her face again and again, then a red furry nose nuzzled her cheek.
“You ran off right and quick.” She smiled at the big dog and stroked his neck.
“You hurt?” Harvind asked, propping himself up on his elbows, his breath heaving.
“I always hurt,” Ruah said. “Remember, I was born this way.”
Harvind nodded and smiled. “Close one, kid.”
Loud, angry voices sounded behind her.
Harvind leapt up to his feet.
“Get off him!” Halpern’s voice sounded.
Ruah clambered up, her left leg trembling and weak under her weight. She saw Harvind push past a mass of bodies, and then get bowled over as Culver went tumbling out of the group of bodies and landed on his back. Another man followed, his dark hair loose over his angry face and his teeth bared between his beard. The man dropped to his knees over Culver and punched once, then twice, and a third time.
“Get off him!” Ruah snapped, hobbling towards the violence. “Get off him!” She ducked and picked up a stone and made a fist about it as a second man burst out of the mass of bodies.
This man was huge, and a thick red beard jutted out from his hooded head. “Leave him, Kal!” the man shouted. He hauled the dark-haired man off Culver and shoved him towards where Harvind was standing. Harvind gripped the man named Kal by his shoulders and muttered something to him.
The red-bearded man hauled Culver to his feet and smiled. “Good to see you, Bergnon.” He punched Culver so hard he flew backwards off his feet and crumpled into a twisted mess of snow and limbs.
Ruah dropped the stone and knelt down beside Culver, ignoring the hurt in her leg, hand brushing the wet hair from about his forehead.
“Roo.” Culver grimaced, blood trickling from cuts to his right brow, the bridge of his nose and lips.
She looked up with a fierce fury and stared at the two men who had beaten him. “I’ll kill them,” she whispered.
“No, child,” Culver grunted, hauling himself into a seated position. “Deserved it.”
“What?”
Culver’s eyes were locked on Kal’s, who returned a look of hatred. Ruah was sure the man would have killed Culver had the red-bearded one not stopped him. Or had she not caved his head in with the stone.
“These men were once as brothers to me,” Culver replied, his eyes remaining fixed on Kal’s. “I betrayed them.”
Kalfinar hunched himself against the curving stone roof of the howf they had found at the foot of the mountain. The space was cramped, and he kept his chin tucked into his folded arms and his eyes locked on where Bergnon sat. Kalfinar’s mouth was dry from the hot fury that coursed through his blood. He flexed his fingers, stretching the flesh over his knuckles as the bruising worked its way about the bone. It felt good to hit him. Felt damn good. Well, not where his finger had come off, that still hurt like hells. He stared at the face of his former friend, the traitor, and he hungered to lash out again.
“Why did that man call you Bergnon?” the skinny red-haired girl asked Bergnon.
The traitor’s eyes flicked up to where Kalfinar sat, his face partially lit by the timid flicker of the candle’s flame. “That’s my name,” Bergnon said in a low, crackling voice.
“But you’re Culver. You said your name was Culver,” the girl pressed, a thread of hurt twisting the pitch of her words.
“Aye,” Bergnon replied, “I did. Real name’s Bergnon.”
The girl dropped her forehead against the top of one arm folded across her knees. The other hand rested on the neck of the big three-legged dog that rested by her side. She lifted her head. “Said you betrayed them. What’d you do?”
“Roo, please,” Bergnon said in a hushed, plaintive voice.
“I’ll tell you what he did,” Kalfinar spoke up, his voice loud in the small space.
Bergnon’s cut and bruised face turned towards him.
“He sold out his friends, his country, and his god, for the sake of someone to warm his bed.”
Bergnon’s lips pressed into a firm line. “She was my wife.”
“She was no cause for all of this,” Kalfinar continued. “He conspired with Grunnxe to see dozens of our military high command murdered. He conspired to have both Broden and I murdered. He conspired to have our people butchered, tormented, and enslaved. He murdered with his own hand, and he–”
“Never meant for all of this to happen,” Bergnon interrupted.
“But it did,” Kalfinar said in a low, hard voice.
“You of all people remember what it feels like to lose that which is more dear to you than anything. You remember it well, Kal,” Bergnon replied.
“Aye. I do.”
“And if you had the chance to prevent it? Had you been given even the thinnest thread of opportunity to keep them alive, to keep what you have alive, would you not have taken it, no matter the price? No matter the price to your soul?”
Kalfinar stared hard at Bergnon.
The candlelight lit gleaming crescents on the traitor’s eyelids as the tears welled in his eyes.
“But it cost us nearly everything. Still might,” Kalfinar replied finally.
“Had I been given the choice again, I can’t with honest words say I wouldn’t choose the same course. Could you make the right choice, Kal? When every way you break it down it’s all blackness and shit?”
The fury that burned his gullet seemed to dull. He thought of his dreams, of that small smiling child, and his wife. It had been years now. Years without them, and years of yearning. Could he have turned away from them, given the chance to keep them alive? Given the choice now with Evelyne, could he turn back, and leave her to her fate, given the chance he could get her back? He turned his eyes from Bergnon and caught sight of Broden. The big man held his gaze for a moment. I see your doubt, cousin. You know I would have done the same. Kalfinar dropped his forehead to his arms, and closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye he saw her, and the child. There they were, in that place his dreams went to. The beach, the sea. He saw them laugh and splash in the waves. They smiled at him, and they pointed to the shore. He turned to see, and where they had pointed stood Evelyne. She waved to him and smiled, her brown hair lifted by the breeze and streaming out behind her as she called hollow words to him. He felt his fury diminish and flee from him. He knew it. He would tear down the world for her. He would tear it all down.
The big eyes of Tusk stared up at Ruah. His mouth dropped open into that dog-smile and Ruah’s spirits lifted just a little. It was enough. She raised her head from the trudging of her feet through the snow and peered ahead to where the rest of the party walked. The soft upper layer of snow was up to the mid-shins of the men ahead as they forced their way through it. Ruah kept to the back, walking in the broken wake of their footfall. She hugged herself tight against the chill air and looked beyond the backs of the men in front, to the sky. The morning had been a soft one, with pastels of lilac and amber lighting the broad white clouds that sat lightly above the ragged peaks. That was the morning. Midday had since passed, and the still air had given way to rising gusts of wind. It lifted the lighter snow, dislodged by their passage, and sent it spinning into Ruah’s face. She lifted the corner of her woollen cloak up to her face and dipped her head. Tusk moved in front of her with his one back leg hopping to a quickened pace. Ruah kept her head down, ignored the flare of pain in her knee, then her hip, and bore on. Breathe, step, pain, pray.
“How’s the leg holding up?” Culver’s voice sounded in front of her.
She looked up and saw he had dropped back from the main body of the group, falling in to her left. “Fine,” she mumbled through the damp wool of her cloak.
“Aye,” Culver grunted and offered her his elbow. “Lean on me if it helps ease the pain.”
Ruah bit back the angry words on her lips. She swallowed them, and grimaced as her knee spasmed again. She took his arm.
“You don’t know what to make of me now, do you?” he asked her.
“Don’t change nothing for me. You’ve helped me more than you’ve hurt me. That’s good enough.”
“Seen things simple your life long. Nice way to have it.”
“Nothing nice about it.”
Culver said nothing a moment.
“Spent my whole life getting treated with as much kindness as the lumps of cow shit I used to air dry with Old Paw. Though some were cruel, most folk didn’t much give a damn for me. Paid me the same regard as they would the shit-cakes, and only gave a damn when they needed them.”
“I know it hasn’t been easy, Roo.”
“No, you don’t, Culver. Or would you prefer I call you Bergnon?” Bergnon. It just don’t feel right.
He said nothing, shrugged, and looked at her with sorrowful eyes narrowed tight against the rising wind.
“Thing is, I’ve grown used to having no expectations of folk. You being what you are is nothing to me.” She felt a heat rise in her gullet, anger flaring at her own lie. She broke her grip of his elbow. “No, fuck it.” She stopped and turned to face him. “Actually, for once, I started to think there was a bit of good in folk. Shit! I even started to see some good in Hal. Hal who spent his whole life torturing me. Torturing me for my leg. Torturing me for my mam being dead. There’s me, fool as I am, sucked into thinking I had something. I had a purpose, a family, or something. Some old shit that was.”
He reached a hand to her shoulder. “Roo–”
“No!” She slapped Culver’s hand away - no - it was Bergnon’s hand. “Don’t. Whatever the hell this is,” she swept her arm towards the group and the wild mountains around them, “whatever we are, it meant something to me. I believed good was coming, and turns out you’re only here because you’re running from the murder of your own fucking friends. There’s no family, no friends. I’ve kidded myself on into thinking my life’s more than the twisted limb it is.”
Bergnon’s face twisted. “Roo–”
“You know what Hal used to say to me when we were kids? Used to tell me that when ranchers came upon calves born with a leg like mine, they’d kill them.”
“Children say cruel things, Roo. He cares for you.”
She felt the brief thread of heat down her cheeks and dashed the tears away with an angry sweep. “Well, fuck him. I don’t care for him. And now I’ve had a little time to chew on it, I don’t care much for you. I’ll see this through, then me and Tusk are gone. You hear me? We’re–”
A clamour of raised voices rose over the gusting wind. Ruah turned and saw three of the party kneeling down to where one had fallen. The others had turned and were walking back to the stricken man.
“Hal?” Bergnon called over the wind as he started towards the gathering men. “Hal!”
“Hal?” Ruah’s voice was only little, and it trembled on her lips as she spoke. Tusk hopped along towards the party, the ungainly gait mirrored by Ruah as she moved. “Hal!” The urgency of the name erupted from her voice in a shout as fear made her throat tighten. She moved faster, ignoring the raging pain that coiled from her knee up her leg and coalesced like fire at the top of her pelvis. “Hal!” She shoved her way past Bergnon and looked down at Hal’s face. He looked up at her, his skin pale and beaded with sweat.
“Hey, Roo.” He smiled, then lost consciousness.
“His boots are near falling apart,” Kal said. The man hunkered down and lifted Hal’s leg in one hand, and with a gentle tug pulled free the sodden boot from Hal’s right leg, and then the left.
Ruah’s heart hammered in her chest as the soaked socks were peeled from Hal’s feet. The tips of his smaller toes on his right foot were withered and black. A purple-green mottling ran from the outer edge of his foot and up towards the bottom of his shin. “Dajda.” Kal put the back of his hand to his nose.
“The boy’s foot’s no use,” Harvind said. “Don’t know how he’s carried on so long with that. How’s the other foot?”
Kal pulled free the sock and looked over the foot. “Fine. Nothing wrong on this one.”
“He’ll not make it on that,” Bergnon said.
“Can’t lea
ve him here. He’ll die,” Kal said, not looking up from the foot. He pulled the socks back over them and gently worked the boots back onto his feet.
“There’s another of the howfs a half-hour from here,” Valus said. “We’ll carry him.”
Bergnon’s arm rested over Ruah’s shoulder, startling her from the frozen image of Hal’s blackened toes. She hadn’t realised she had been crying. She looked around at Bergnon. “He said they’d kill them.”
The howf was cold and dark, lit by the greasy light from the small fire of seal fat and branches scavenged from the gully.
Ruah watched as Harvind cleaned the lower half of Halpern’s right leg using melted snow. Bergnon sat next to her, his arm around her shoulders, holding her tight. What warmth leached from him to her was near of no use; she trembled still, though in her belly, she knew it was far beyond cold that wrestled within her. Stupid boy. Shouldn’t have kept your mouth shut.
Halpern’s eyelids flickered and opened, rolling up white into his skull. The skin of his face glistened with sweat.
“We can’t be waiting round for this lad to die,” the big man with the purple scarring on his head grumbled. “Needs doing what needs doing. Simple as that.”
Ruah felt her throat tighten as fury streaked hot within her.
“Enough, Jukster,” Kal snapped from the other side of the cramped howf, cutting Ruah’s retort off in her mouth. “Harvind,” Kalfinar turned his attention away from the sour face of the man named Jukster, “what’s to do?”
The man with the odd eyes turned around from Halpern and pulled free the large knife he carried by his side. “I’d normally take the lad’s leg just below the knee.”
A small moan betrayed Ruah’s fear for Halpern. It may as well have boomed like the crashing of the avalanche, such was the cramped stillness of the howf. Bergnon squeezed her shoulder as her eyes dropped to where her own twisted limb rested in the dark floorspace before her.